


What Makes You Happy?

by timelostdoctor



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29654787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelostdoctor/pseuds/timelostdoctor
Summary: Yaz finds a refuge from unwanted attention in the form of a blonde woman sitting by herself.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 10
Kudos: 33





	What Makes You Happy?

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, your basic coffee shop au. I don't know if i've ever actually written one, but now I have! I only picked a coffee shop because I didn't want it to be a bar. So! Here we are! I hope you enjoy it. Mostly just wrote it while waiting on grocery pickup so fingers crossed that it even makes sense.

The shuffle of paper and the squeak of the chair let Yaz know he was back. She gritted her teeth. She opened her eyes to his attempt at a disarming smile. All things considered, he wasn’t bad looking. Clean-shaven, deep blue eyes, dark hair, athletic. The trouble came with his personality. 

Namely, he was a complete and total jerk. He was already much too close to Yaz for her comfort. She could smell his cologne. His arm brushed hers as he sat the paper cup down on the table in front of them. “Thought you might like a refill.” He gave her an award-winning grin. She wanted nothing more than to wipe it from his face. 

“I told you, I’m just trying to study,” Yaz said. She was already pressed against the arm of the chair so she didn’t have anywhere to move to. She had chosen this place, her favorite locally owned coffee house, because she wanted to get out of her family’s flat for the evening. She had to study, and she couldn’t do that while he kept bothering her. It had already been a twenty minute battle.

Yaz looked around the well-lit cafe and her eyes fell on the only other person who seemed to be there alone. A blonde woman sat with her feet propped up on a table, her laptop in her lap. A cup of tea steamed in front of her and a half-eaten sandwich lay beside it. 

Quick as she could, Yaz gathered all her things and stood. “I see my friend.” She didn’t wait to see if the guy heard or understood. She went straight to the blonde and plopped herself down at the table. The woman gave her a curious glance. 

“That guy has been all over me since I came in,” Yaz said. “Nothing I said or did made a difference.” She gave the woman an awkward smile. “I’m Yaz Khan.”

The woman sat up, closing her laptop. “Nice to meet ya, Yaz. Name’s Joan, technically, but everyone calls me the Doctor.”

Yaz laughed. “Why do they call you the Doctor?”

“I’m the best drug dealer in town!” she said, throwing both arms out to the side. She laughed at Yaz’s raised eyebrow. “No, not really. I just know a lot of things about a lot of things.” She gestured to the books Yaz had stacked on the table. “What are you studying?”

Yaz sighed, opening the book half-heartedly. “History. I’m going to uni but I don’t know what I want to do. I was always good with history, remembering people and events and dates, so I’m studying it until I figure out what I want.” She shrugged. 

The Doctor sat back. “Let me ask you a question, Yaz Khan. What do you want to do with your life? Not what job do you want. What, broadly speaking, do you want out of life?”

Yaz raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

The Doctor’s feet finally made contact with the floor as she leaned forward in her chair. She got unnervingly close to Yaz. “I like helping people. Fixing problems, cleaning up messes, just whatever needs doing. I never turn someone who needs help away. That’s what I’m asking. What do you want? Do you just want to make money, or bring joy to people, or be a hero? What is it, in here,” the Doctor put her hand over her heart, “that you want?”

In her short 19 years on the planet, the question had never been put to Yaz in such a way. Her eyebrows knitted together as she thought. The words came slowly. “I want to be happy.” She looked up at the Doctor who nodded.

“Yes, that is good. It’s such a good start.” The Doctor picked up her tea and sipped at it. “Does history make you happy?”

Yaz looked at the book and thought of her classes and shook her head. “It’s just something I’m good at.”

“So you’re doing it because it’s easy?” The question didn’t have any malicious intent behind it, but Yaz felt her ears burn all the same. It felt almost shameful once she thought about it.

“Yeah. I guess so.” She looked down at the book, raking her fingers over the closed pages, lifting them slightly so they made a small sound as they fell. 

The Doctor nodded. “There’s nothing wrong with that, if you want an easy life.”

Yaz paused and looked up at the Doctor. Their eyes met and Yaz felt her heartbeat speed up as she realized how striking the Doctor’s eyes were. “I don’t want easy.”

The Doctor’s smile brightened. “That’s good! Easy if fine for some folks, but I think you’re special. So what will make you happy, Yaz? You don’t have to know it right now. I’m not asking you to tell me. I’m just giving you something to think on.”

Still, her mind raced as her perception shifted slightly to the left. What would make her happy? “One time there was this copper. I know she was just doing her job, but I was not about to make the best decision of my life and she convinced me to not do it.” Yaz let her eyes wander around the coffee shop, taking in the espresso soaked air. “I think I’d like to do that. Help people, I mean.” Then she shrugged. “And travel. Help people everywhere I can. No just here.”

“So you want to save the world?”

A smile tugged at Yaz’s lips. “If you want to say that, sure.”

Yaz leaned back, forgetting about the history book and the studying she had wanted to do. “How is it that you help people?”

The Doctor smiled and shook her head. “It’s a long and complicated story and my time here’s about up.”

Her heartbeat in her ears, Yaz snatched the opportunity before it vanished forever. “Well, maybe you’d like to tell me over dinner sometime?” She found she was holding her breath as the woman looked over over for a second that felt like it lasted an hour. 

The Doctor nodded, her cheeks turning the faintest shade of pink. “Yeah. That sounds grand. Dinner with Yaz Khan.”

“Good. That makes me very happy, Doctor.”

The Doctor pulled out a sharpie and wrote her number on Yaz’s palm. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” she admitted. Then she turned Yaz’s hand over and pressed a kiss to it. “Do call me.” Then she was walking out the door, stumbling into a chair and the door itself looking back over her shoulder as Yaz giggled. 

She only waited a few seconds before calling the number on her palm.


End file.
